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The electroretinogram in multiple sclerosis and demyelinating optic neuritis.

The electroretinogram (ERG) to flashes of white light presented under photopic conditions and the pattern reversal visual evoked potentials (PR-VEPs) from both eyes were recorded from 14 patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) with monocular demyelinating optic neuritis (DON) and from 11 patients soon after presenting with monocular demyelinating optic neuritis alone. Fifteen and 10 normal subjects, matched for age and sex, were used as controls for each group of patients respectively. In the DON group of patients and controls the flicker following ERG (FF-ERG) to white flashes of light at 40 Hz was also recorded. Skin electrodes and averaging procedures were used for all the recordings. The PR-VEP elicited with stimulation of the affected eye was absent or abnormally delayed, and the amplitude of the 'b' wave of ERG of the affected eye was diminished in all patients. The 'b' wave latency, however, was similar in both affected and non-affected eyes and the controls. There was no difference in 'a' wave amplitude and latency between eyes of patients and normal subjects. The FF-ERG in 8 out of 10 patients with satisfactory recordings was diminished in the affected eye. These results provide neurophysiological evidence that retinal damage is not due to loss of myelin but is an early feature of demyelinating optic neuritis. This damage preferentially affects the retinal elements associated with the generation of the 'b' wave of the ERG, probably the glial cells of Müller.

Demyelinating Diseases↗

Homotopy and heterotopy and the bilateral field advantage in the Dimond paradigm.

Pairs of homotopic and heterotopic visual bilateral stimuli and pairs of unilateral visual stimuli were presented to 12 normal right-handed university students requiring a key press if they were of the same form. As predicted from the known histology of the corpus callosum (massive preponderance of homotopic fibers), homotopic presentations yielded significantly faster reaction times than heterotopic stimulations. Bilateral pairs of stimuli were also advantaged in comparison with unilateral trials, replicating Sereno and Kosslyn [Sereno, A. B., & Kosslyn, S. M. (1991). Discrimination within and between hemifields: a new constraint on theories of attention. Neuropsychologia, 29, 659-675]. Moreover, certain attentional processes have never been investigated in the Dimond paradigm and this study provides evidence to the effect that discriminative reaction times to stimulus pairs are strongly influenced by their proximity to the fixation point. In similar previous experiments, the homotopy/heterotopy observation and the bilateral field advantage may have been distorted by that particular confound, as well as several others.

Adult↗

Orthoptic indications for contact lens wear.

Orthoptic anomalies are prevalent: they are encountered in at least 5% of patients seen in a typical primary eyecare practice. Several cases are reviewed that highlight the role of contact lenses in treating orthoptic anomalies. In particular, contact lenses are the preferred optical approach to the correction of anisometropia, and it is often argued that anisometropia should be corrected as young as possible. However, fitting contact lenses to patients, particularly children, with anisometropic amblyopia has been problematic because there is no immediate binocular acuity improvement when the contact lenses are inserted which reduces patient motivation. Continuous wear with silicone hydrogels represents a breakthrough for these cases and some illustrative case studies are given. The visual deficit in amblyopia can be reduced in some cases solely by fitting contact lenses, without the need for occlusion therapy. Other orthoptic uses of contact lenses are reviewed including: correcting motor deviations, occlusion, and infantile onset nystagmus. It is concluded that there are orthoptic anomalies where contact lenses are the preferred mode of correction. It is in patients' best interest for practitioners to discuss contact lenses in these cases.

Amblyopia↗

Fusion and rivalry are dependent on the perceptual meaning of visual stimuli.

We view the world with two eyes and yet are typically only aware of a single, coherent image. Arguably the simplest explanation for this is that the visual system unites the two monocular stimuli into a common stream that eventually leads to a single coherent sensation. However, this notion is inconsistent with the well-known phenomenon of rivalry; when physically different stimuli project to the same retinal location, the ensuing perception alternates between the two monocular views in space and time. Although fundamental for understanding the principles of binocular vision and visual awareness, the mechanisms under-lying binocular rivalry remain controversial. Specifically, there is uncertainty about what determines whether monocular images undergo fusion or rivalry. By taking advantage of the perceptual phenomenon of color contrast, we show that physically identical monocular stimuli tend to rival-not fuse-when they signify different objects at the same location in visual space. Conversely, when physically different monocular stimuli are likely to represent the same object at the same location in space, fusion is more likely to result. The data suggest that what competes for visual awareness in the two eyes is not the physical similarity between images but the similarity in their perceptual/empirical meaning.

Color Perception↗

Psychophysics: catching the old codger's eye.

Some visual stimuli are bistable, with perception alternating irregularly between two alternatives. Recent work suggests that the neural processing of these alternations must occur at low levels of the visual system.

Photic Stimulation↗

Predicting the stream of consciousness from activity in human visual cortex.

Can the rapid stream of conscious experience be predicted from brain activity alone? Recently, spatial patterns of activity in visual cortex have been successfully used to predict feature-specific stimulus representations for both visible and invisible stimuli. However, because these studies examined only the prediction of static and unchanging perceptual states during extended periods of stimulation, it remains unclear whether activity in early visual cortex can also predict the rapidly and spontaneously changing stream of consciousness. Here, we used binocular rivalry to induce frequent spontaneous and stochastic changes in conscious experience without any corresponding changes in sensory stimulation, while measuring brain activity with fMRI. Using information that was present in the multivariate pattern of responses to stimulus features, we could accurately predict, and therefore track, participants' conscious experience from the fMRI signal alone while it underwent many spontaneous changes. Prediction in primary visual cortex primarily reflected eye-based signals, whereas prediction in higher areas reflected the color of the percept. Furthermore, accurate prediction during binocular rivalry could be established with signals recorded during stable monocular viewing, showing that prediction generalized across viewing conditions and did not require or rely on motor responses. It is therefore possible to predict the dynamically changing time course of subjective experience with only brain activity.

Adult↗

Neuroimaging: seeing the trees for the forest.

New functional imaging studies demonstrate that it is possible to decode a sensory visual pattern, and even an internal perceptual state, by combining seemingly insignificant feature selective signal biases present in a large number of voxels.

Attention↗

Evaluation of different measures of functional connectivity using a neural mass model.

We use a neural mass model to address some important issues in characterising functional integration among remote cortical areas using magnetoencephalography or electroencephalography (MEG or EEG). In a previous paper [Neuroimage (in press)], we showed how the coupling among cortical areas can modulate the MEG or EEG spectrum and synchronise oscillatory dynamics. In this work, we exploit the model further by evaluating different measures of statistical dependencies (i.e., functional connectivity) among MEG or EEG signals that are mediated by neuronal coupling. We have examined linear and nonlinear methods, including phase synchronisation. Our results show that each method can detect coupling but with different sensitivity profiles that depended on (i) the frequency specificity of the interaction (broad vs. narrow band) and (ii) the nature of the coupling (linear vs. nonlinear). Our analyses suggest that methods based on the concept of generalised synchronisation are the most sensitive when interactions encompass different frequencies (broadband analyses). In the context of narrow-band analyses, mutual information was found to be the most sensitive way to disclose frequency-specific couplings. Measures based on generalised synchronisation and phase synchronisation are the most sensitive to nonlinear coupling. These different sensitivity profiles mean that the choice of coupling measures can have dramatic effects on the cortical networks identified. We illustrate this using a single-subject MEG study of binocular rivalry and highlight the greater recovery of statistical dependencies among cortical areas in the beta band when mutual information is used.

Beta Rhythm↗

Waves of consciousness: ongoing cortical patterns during binocular rivalry.

We present here ongoing patterns of distributed brain synchronous activity that correlate with the spontaneous flow of perceptual dominance during binocular rivalry. Specific modulation of the magnetoencephalographic (MEG) response evoked during conscious perception of a frequency-tagged stimulus was evidenced throughout rivalry. Estimation of the underlying cortical sources revealed, in addition to strong bilateral striate and extrastriate visual cortex activation, parietal, temporal pole and frontal contributions. Cortical activity was significantly modulated concomitantly to perceptual alternations in visual cortex, medial parietal and left frontal regions. Upon dominance, coactivation of occipital and frontal regions, including anterior cingulate and medial frontal areas, was established. This distributed cortical network, as measured by phase synchrony in the frequency tag band, was dynamically modulated in concert with the perceptual dominance of the tagged stimulus. While the anteroposterior pattern was recurrent through subjects, individual variations in the extension of the network were apparent.

Adult↗

Frequency flows and the time-frequency dynamics of multivariate phase synchronization in brain signals.

The quantification of phase synchrony between brain signals is of crucial importance for the study of large-scale interactions in the brain. Current methods are based on the estimation of the stability of the phase difference between pairs of signals over a time window, within successive frequency bands. This paper introduces a new approach to study the dynamics of brain synchronies, Frequency Flows Analysis (FFA). It allows direct tracking and characterization of the nonstationary time-frequency dynamics of phase synchrony among groups of signals. It is based on the use of the one-to-one relationship between frequency locking and phase synchrony, which applies when the concept of phase synchrony is not taken in an extended 'statistical' sense of a bias in the distribution of phase differences, but in the sense of a continuous phase difference conservation during a short period of time. In such a case, phase synchrony implies identical instantaneous frequencies among synchronized signals, with possible time varying frequencies of synchronization. In this framework, synchronous groups of signals or neural assemblies can be identified as belonging to common frequency flows, and the problem of studying synchronization becomes the problem of tracking frequency flows. We use the ridges of the analytic wavelet transforms of the signals of interest in order to estimate maps of instantaneous frequencies and reveal sustained periods of common instantaneous frequency among groups of signal. FFA is shown to track complex dynamics of synchrony in coupled oscillator models, reveal the time-frequency and spatial dynamics of synchrony convergence and divergence in epileptic seizures, and in MEG data the large-scale ongoing dynamics of synchrony correlated with conscious perception during binocular rivalry.

Adult↗

Figure and ground in the visual cortex: v2 combines stereoscopic cues with gestalt rules.

Figure-ground organization is a process by which the visual system identifies some image regions as foreground and others as background, inferring 3D layout from 2D displays. A recent study reported that edge responses of neurons in area V2 are selective for side-of-figure, suggesting that figure-ground organization is encoded in the contour signals (border ownership coding). Here, we show that area V2 combines two strategies of computation, one that exploits binocular stereoscopic information for the definition of local depth order, and another that exploits the global configuration of contours (Gestalt factors). These are combined in single neurons so that the "near" side of the preferred 3D edge generally coincides with the preferred side-of-figure in 2D displays. Thus, area V2 represents the borders of 2D figures as edges of surfaces, as if the figures were objects in 3D space. Even in 3D displays, Gestalt factors influence the responses and can enhance or null the stereoscopic depth information.

Algorithms↗

Neural bases of binocular rivalry.

During binocular rivalry, conflicting monocular images compete for access to consciousness in a stochastic, dynamical fashion. Recent human neuroimaging and psychophysical studies suggest that rivalry entails competitive interactions at multiple neural sites, including sites that retain eye-selective information. Rivalry greatly suppresses activity in the ventral pathway and attenuates visual adaptation to form and motion; nonetheless, some information about the suppressed stimulus reaches higher brain areas. Although rivalry depends on low-level inhibitory interactions, high-level excitatory influences promoting perceptual grouping and selective attention can extend the local dominance of a stimulus over space and time. Inhibitory and excitatory circuits considered within a hybrid model might account for the paradoxical properties of binocular rivalry and provide insights into the neural bases of visual awareness itself.

Animals↗

Representation of stereoscopic structure in human and monkey cortex.

Tsao et al. have recently used functional magnetic resonance imaging to compare processing for moving stereoscopic forms in macaque and human brains. Most humans exhibited activation in a swath of lateral occipital areas, extending into the intraparietal sulcus, with a limited version of the same pattern in monkeys. However, neither species showed strong activation of the motion area known as MT in monkey or its human homolog.

Animals↗

The aperture problem in egocentric motion.

When only a featureless straight contour of a moving object is visible, one cannot tell its true velocity and the object seems to be moving perpendicularly to its orientation. Using psychophysics and brain imaging, Goltz et al. have now demonstrated that this aperture problem also occurs in visual representations in egocentric coordinates. An afterimage of inclined lines that is perceived to move with smooth-pursuit eye movements appears to move perpendicularly to the lines rather than in the tracking direction.

Afterimage↗

Spatial summation of S-cone ON and OFF signals: effects of retinal eccentricity.

We studied spatial summation for S-cone ON and OFF signals as a function of retinal eccentricity in human subjects. S-cone isolation was obtained by the two-colour threshold method of Stiles, modified by adding blue light to the yellow background. Test stimuli were blue light increments or decrements within a circular area of variable size. These were presented for 100 ms at 0 to 20 deg along the horizontal temporal retinal meridian. Ricco's area of complete spatial summation was measured from the threshold vs. area curves. This was nearly constant and approximately the same for both types of stimuli within the 0-5 deg range and increased beyond this range. The decremental area increased faster, suggesting that separate mechanisms, presumably ON and OFF, integrate S-cone increments and decrements. The results appear to provide new evidence for the existence of separate S-cone ON and OFF pathways. We compare the data with known morphology of primate retina and assume that, if S-cone decrements are detected via separate OFF cells, these should differ in density and dendritic field size from the S-cone ON cells, but only in the retinal periphery.

Adult↗

Depth-dependent blur adaptation.

Variations in blur are present in retinal images of scenes containing objects at multiple depth planes. Here we examine whether neural representations of image blur can be recalibrated as a function of depth. Participants were exposed to textured images whose blur changed with depth in a novel manner. For one group of participants, image blur increased as the images moved closer; for the other group, blur increased as the images moved away. A comparison of post-test versus pre-test performances on a blur-matching task at near and far test positions revealed that both groups of participants showed significant experience-dependent recalibration of the relationship between depth and blur. These results demonstrate that blur adaptation is conditioned by 3D viewing contexts.

Adaptation, Ocular↗